HOUSTON – A New Jersey woman says a stranger from Cypress sent her racist and graphic death threats because of her support for the Black Lives Matter movement.
"I feel like my life is in danger," Heather Smith told Channel 2.
The disturbing, hate-filled threat arrived in her Facebook inbox Tuesday morning.
"It started off with, 'Let me tell you how I want to kill you,'" Smith said.
Smith says she didn't recognize the man's name or face, but thinks she knows why he targeted her.
"I speak a lot on Black Lives Matter, on racism, and I have friends who share my post, and that's most likely how he saw my page and decided to target me," she said.
In the lengthy message, the man calls Smith a "filthy black chick," uses the N-word and details his plan to kidnap and murder her.
"Long, drawn-out torture. It's so graphic, it's really disgusting," Smith said.
Channel 2 is not identifying the man because he has not been charged with a crime. But according to his social media posts, he is a 24-year-old white male from the Houston area.
Channel 2 went to a Cypress address listed for the man. He wasn't there, but his father was. The father said he was aware of his son's message and had spoken to him about it.
"He's a kid. He wasn't thinking what he was saying," the 24-year-old man's father said.
After someone confronted the man about the threatening message, he responded.
The Harris County Sheriff's Office says the man's message could be considered a terroristic threat or online harassment but that it's up to New Jersey law enforcement agencies to investigate first, then present their case if they have one, to Harris County cybercrimes investigators.
"It's a little different where you have a complainant out of state and then having to send caseloads back and forth, but it has been done and we have filed cases and gotten convictions on this type of stuff," Deputy Thomas Gilliland said. ?
Smith has filed a police report with her local authorities.